Generosity - Shane Willard

[Music] thank you everybody thank you you could be seated uh it's so good to be in the the uh the feeling goes both ways uh justin and to the team here you guys are um uh just you know when you when you're amongst friends you're amongst friends and um and that's that's a good that's a really really good place um to be um as always if this is your first meeting with us um afterwards we have a resource table set up um out there uh robin and brony will be out there the only thing i would ask is that if you don't want anything god bless you i'll see you next time if you know i'm going to grab something before i leave tonight i would just ask that you do that in the first 10 minutes the reason is is because rania and robin have given their day and it's not this isn't their job they have to go to work tomorrow and so the fulfillment of scripture is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you and so i don't want them having to stand there for 40 minutes while people have coffee although i want you to have coffee i just want you to buy first and chat second okay so that's the order of things we're gonna buy first chat second that way we can treat robin and bronya um well so we'll be out there for about 10 minutes and then we gotta we have to pack it up i've got to take it to the next place i'm speaking in arana hills um this tuesday and then uh we'll see i'm supposed to be in adelaide next week this coming week but i don't know so we'll see uh you just have to take what whatever uh whatever comes at us all right so um come come say hello out there now what we've uh talked about today uh my job when i come to president's church is to open the bible and i take that really serious and so when you open the scripture you want to ask at least two questions one what happened and two what's happening in me right now because of what happened and so the journey we've taken today is that love doesn't keep score love doesn't keep scoring if love doesn't keep score then god doesn't keep score you can't have a score keeping god and then not develop into a scorekeeper yourself and if we score keep ourselves we'll be unhappy because the divine privilege to living in a loving relationship gets dumbed down to a competition and uh that that creates all kinds of revenge and anger and fear and anxiety just creates a whole lot of problems and then the second one we talked about jonah and whether we were going to focus our life on plants or people and um and how we don't want to be people who surrender to god's moral will for our lives while losing sight of what god's up to and everybody else particularly the most vulnerable that that followers of jesus are not people who believe in jesus followers of jesus are people who fundamentally allow jesus to shape how they see the world how they see god and how they apply scripture and that means we would never ever ever as followers of christ use our liberties to step over or act like the most vulnerable amongst us matter less than our personal freedom right and so we talked about that tonight i want to talk to you about developing a righteous spirit and i want to um i want to talk to you a bit about money um and i want you to relax in that and so um i i i think that when we when we breach topics like this it can get a little bit hairy because of topics like this carry a certain amount of baggage with it because i'm not only talking to you i'm talking to everything you've ever heard about it and every abuse you've ever heard and so but the truth of it is is i truly just want i want all of us to win financially and if you listen what i'm going to say tonight and you apply it you will win financially right now some people are going to be able to do that some people are not and i don't i don't think god likes us any less or more i just think that there's a good life in understanding some of these principles and i want to start dealing with that but before i do i want to ask for forgiveness okay because words always matter less than how we picture those words functioning so there's a way to say something that's true that can necessarily create an untrue imagination so the example i used in the first service this morning is if i said jesus is your judge true but if you picture a heavenly courtroom and jesus as a judicial officer deciding if you're guilty not guilty if you're in credit or you're in debit that's not true because the the hebrew word for judge is chauffeured which is defender it's somebody anointed by god to set us free right and so we say jesus is your judge now come on get close to jesus ain't nobody going to be in court nobody wants to be in court even if you're innocent right and so but what if our primary image of jesus the judge is like the book of judges which was not judicial officers it was people anointed by god to set us free now the same is true with the word tithe so so the lady this morning that was him seeing she she did a she did a great job moving the service line and then she took up the offering and she told a testimony that was her story around how the tithe worked and here's here's what's true about that story some people connected with that story right i did because that's my story as well some people didn't connect with the story just because they weren't ready to hear something like that but other people might have disconnected from it not because what she said wasn't true but because the imagination that that word creates has a certain amount of baggage to it that isn't good right and so when i say the word tithe that doesn't matter what matters is whatever picture you have right now right and for most people tithing gets dumbed down to give 10 to the church why because god said shut up that's what it gets dumbed down to and then that sort of thing lends itself to certain abuses and so i would like to ask for forgiveness for at least three of these abuses so let me um if you could throw that first slide up for me uh there are there are at least three there's probably uh more that the tithe is a rule to attain god's love so if it was ever presented and i want to be clear i don't think anybody ever would intend to present it that way but that doesn't mean somebody in here didn't hear it and here's the problem right if your whole life when someone said tithe you heard you better give sacrificially for god to love you now when i talk about something like this i have to overcome that image and i don't want to overcome that image because that's not what i mean when i say it even if the person who said it do you mean it that way that is not what i mean and if and in fact that could be used to manipulate and abuse people that kind of idea whether you ever give a cent or not i don't like god is eternally extending consent and mercy and love towards you right that's not about that number two that the idea that the tithe is an end in and of itself what that sounds like is is just tithe and the re it's all okay after that like you could sort of be a jerk but you're a tithing jerk right right well no if you're a tithing jerk you're you're a jerk right and i would say the same thing about like tongues people say well i'm spirit-filled how because i speak in tongues yeah but you you beat your wife you're a tongue-talking jerk right it's it's so the idea that tongues or tithing or any of that isn't into itself it sounds and again i don't think anybody ever intended to do this but you could see where some people might have taken it that way correct like hey just tithe and that's the end of your that hey tithing is the end of your obligation as a jesus person to do good in your community uh no no tithing goes is a part of a package and the third abuse i'd like to ask so if um if you were ever told that the tithe is some sort of transactional thing for god to love you i i apologize and so i'm going to use the word tithe tonight but if that's your picture we're talking different languages here or have you ever told the ties and into itself again i apologize i never told you that but somebody might have and so i get up and say or or the the lady that took the offering she gets up and says this is how much tithing has blessed my life and and you're thinking how does this rule for god to live what is this who who does that and if so and so what happens is sometimes we end up arguing about words but what we're really arguing about is the picture those words created right and so somebody says i don't believe in tithing and i'm thinking what is it exactly you don't believe in because what i've always found is is that when i ask when i when i don't argue the theology of tithing i just say tell me what tithing is i've never had somebody actually be against tithing and we're going to talk about that in a second the third abuse i'd like to ask for forgiveness for is that the tithe is magic like hey hey act as stupid as you want and just tithe and you'll automatically win no you won't no you won't no you won't if you buy things you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you don't like you're going to be broke if you buy a sixty thousand dollar car on a fifty thousand dollar income you're going to be broke and it's not because of satan poor satan flipping satan attacking everybody and this non-omnipresent being seven billion people in the world and he's not attacking myanmar no he's attacking your finances no no satan has got nothing to do with you being broke you're paying eight percent interest on something losing fifty percent of its value in the first three years that's why you're broke and the bottom line is is we have two choices we could take responsibility for our financial choices or we can scapegoat something like off i just would have been tithing this enemy couldn't attack my finances wait a minute the enemy can take a vacation from attacking most people's finances just because we do enough stupid stuff right so i'd like to apologize if it was presented as a transaction for love if it was somehow presented as an end to itself or if it was presented as some sort of magic hey do whatever you want to do if you just tie don't worry about it god's got this actually that's the last temptation that's the second temptation of christ wasn't it second temptation where the enemy says to jesus hey um just do something really dumb and jump off a mountain and god's plan for your life is like so big he'll probably rescue you remember jesus's response jesus is like maybe but why would i test him when i could just not jump right in other words god is not duty bound to fix stupidity nor is he duty bound to finish something he didn't start if it's if it's just your really poorly planned out idea shoving the name god on the end of it is not going to make it any better of an idea and so when we present these things if it's ever been presented to you this way would you forgive me and forgive them on behalf of me and for the next 30 minutes would you give me a fresh slate to create a better picture so let's see where this might take us a couple of observations about how money works one next slide one money is a great servant but a horrible master okay so the best the the financial freedom is this on the first of every month you tell your money what it must do financial bondage is this on the first of every month your money tells you what you must do and so what we all want to get to is we all want to get to a place where we are money's master not money being our master because money is a great servant but a horrible master two in building a christ-centered community how we think about our stuff is of utmost importance like if the only goal in your whole life is to go to heaven one day when you die whatever don't worry about it i find you boring but whatever right but we're really trying to build a christ-centered community you cannot think about things how jesus thought about things without considering the role of our things just can't do it number three the seemingly small choices we make today affects big things tomorrow if it all depends on how far out your game is or how far out your goal is as to how much it matters what you do today matters right so let me give you example if you have a very short-term goal like i want to get through today without dying okay well if that's your goal you can almost do anything and get away with it as long as it doesn't kill you but if your goal is say 10 years from now i want to have some money and live financially abundant then the small choices we make today makes a big deal then the shorter your goal the more inconsequential the small shifts are so for instance if you're flying from brisbane to harvey bay and you're one degree off course welcome to maryborough but if you're flying from brisbane to l.a and you're one degree off course welcome to mexico it's an entirely different country right and so people say well what i do today doesn't so much matter well sometimes you're right about that if your goal is to gauge it in terms of did it ruin your day or not but the effects that it has over the long term is huge a given example let's pretend covet is not a thing just for a second for this example to make any sense right according to foreign magazine the uh the generation turning 20 today has more money available to them by the age of 20 than the previous four generations before it combined okay and that's obvious because all you have to do is talk to a 19 year old and a 19 year old with a straight face will say if i say hey what's your plan over the next year 19 year olds with a straight face will say you know what i'm thinking about doing i'm thinking about taking a year off and walking around europe who's got that kind of money listen i was born in 1976 we did not could you okay if you're 40 years old or older could you imagine telling your dad that you were going to take a year off to walk around europe imagine telling your dad that your dad if i told my dad dad i got a plan i'm going to take a year off walk around europe why to find myself my dad would have been like look there you are go get a job right we didn't think about that why because we didn't have that kind of money the 19 year old today has that kind of money here's the problem the 19 year old might say it's only gonna cost me ten thousand dollars i've worked it out now listen i've worked a lot in europe if you can go to europe for three months for ten thousand dollars good luck on wherever you're staying okay because that is a dangerous dangerous situation you might be staying in some grubby nasty you can't even imagine but whatever you say oh is there anything wrong with spending ten thousand dollars to go to europe no but the question is never is it right or wrong that's the lie of the snake first lie told the scriptures big one told by a talking snake when a bible author says this lie is so big a talking snake told the lie pay attention to the lie and that lie is that your best life is found in navigating right or wrong it's not because there's a lot of things that aren't wrong but they're not wise they're not useful right ten thousand dollars at 20 years old will double seven times by 62 years old if you in other words if you took this you go waste ten thousand dollars walking around europe or you could take the same ten thousand dollars and invest it in just an average index fund nothing real risky just an average mutual fund doing the market averages over the course of the last 70 years that money will double roughly six or seven times you know what means 20. 40 80 160 320 640 1.2 million i hope you like the trip right that small thing at the beginning has turned into something huge at the end you might say well that trip was worth 10 grand maybe was it worth 1 million because at 20 years old that's sort of what it costed you in the long run the seemingly small choices we make today affect big things tomorrow which leads me to some questions next slide number one how did you get what you have there is only two ways to accumulate things legally one is you buy it you work for it you buy it you earn it so if you drove a car here today that you worked for you took your paycheck you took some money and you bought that car that is your car the other way to get things is someone gives it to you right so you either buy it or it's given to you as a gift so if you drove here tonight in a car that you bought good if you drove here tonight in a car someone gave you also good however if you drove here tonight in a car that no one gave you and you didn't buy it you stole it listen there's only two ways to get things work for it and earn it are being given to us and this is the question we have to deal with as jesus followers do we see our stuff as things that we worked for and earned or do we see everything as a gift from the one that owns it all and here's the problem once again words matter less than how we picture words working if i said are you stealing that doesn't matter what matters is what you think theft is so if you think no i have not taken anything that is not mine okay amen but in hebrew theft had two definitions one is to take something that's not yours duh second definition was to withhold something the master intended for somebody else and of course that's theft if i own a business and let's say my bit my business is widget making and i say i want you to deliver this box of widgets to that customer over there and i'm the master of the business i give you the widgets into your stewardship and i say drive it to the customer in noosa right you go okay no worries and halfway to noosa you pull over side of the road and your crew comes and you take half the widgets close the box and then deliver half the box of widgets to the then you it's not just taking something that's not yours it's taking something that was intended by the master for somebody else that is theft that the third question is do you need more than a touch from god and again i would just like to ask for forgiveness for anybody that would ever told you hey all you need's a touch from god no that's not true not when it comes to money that is not true all you need's a touch from god for your spirit probably but when it comes to money you need way more than a touch from god you need to work you need to have some wisdom you know you need to not be dumb right like you can't make stupid decisions and then presume upon god's grace to fix stupidity let's say in a couple ways god is not duty bound to fix stupidity nor is he duty bound to finish something he did not initiate we actually need to live in wisdom now the jewish people whatever you think about jews you got to give them this they nailed the money thing hey i mean come on like whatever your thoughts is i say jewish people whatever your thoughts is if your thoughts are like the little hats or the things whatever you're thinking right whatever your thoughts is about jewish people you gotta admit they nailed the money thing they have less than one percent of the world's population and thirty percent of the world's wealth they might be on to something right and when they talk about money they operate on five principles not one and so i don't have time to go through all five but i am gonna name all five next slide work wisdom honor knowing god and developing a lifestyle of generosity let me preach the first three in 30 seconds there's a cure for being broke it's called get a job it's called get up before 10 o'clock in the morning it's called show up dressed well it's called bathe regularly right it's it's called work for god not the man right it's called if you act like you own the place one day you'll own the place right it's that it's take pride in your work it's listen you can't i think i speak for the leaders here if i don't i i apologize but if if you're having if you're having financial difficulty we will pray with all of our heart that god will give you financial breakthrough but we'd also like to know if we called you at 10 30 you're already awake great right like i don't know how it all works but i do know australia is pretty awesome if you're a person who wants to upskill i mean i know someone personally who they for free paid for her to get a licensed forklift driving you know why because there's a shortage of forklift drivers in queensland so they said hey if you're willing to learn how to forklift drive we got you right you know how long it took her to get a four-click driver's license like seriously two days which frankly is terrifying you're giving somebody who's never touched a 6 000 pound piece of machinery the key anyway so but you know what it cost her to get that license nothing you know what fort league drivers make in queensland a lot in other words we will pray for you to have financial breakthrough but we'd also like to know that you're at least applying to the forklift driver school or the electrician school or or or the whatever but the tafe that that gets you the skills necessary to make it right you need more than a touch from god you go to school right you need to read books we need to have some skill right so there's there's it's not just god it's work it's also wisdom wisdom is spend less than you make and do so for a very long time if if you want to know if you want to know why the jews have all the money here we go every generation since they've existed they've all saved 10 percent of their income and then passed it on to their children's children well over the course of 20 30 generations that is a lot of passed on wealth it's living in wisdom honor honor has more to do with how you treat another person in other words you cannot win financially if you're doing intentional harm to somebody else because sowing and reaping comes around again if this was a half a day seminar and i could teach each one of these i would for tonight trust me you don't want me to do all that right i want to focus on the last two though knowing god and developing a lifestyle of generosity knowing god and developing a lifestyle of generosity so the question is is if i said do you know god it's a pretty important thing like jesus said things like depart from me i never knew you and remember the people he said that to they were like surprised they were like what but we wait a minute how do you not know us we cast out demons in your name and we prophesied in your name in other words jesus says i don't know you and the pentecostals are like what we're the one prophesying and casting i mean who else is prophesying in jesus name and casting out devils pentecostals in other words jesus said there's a lot of people at the end of the day that think they know me but

Channel: Presence Church AU

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Length: 25min 18sec (1518 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021